


To Everything There Is A Season

by loves_books



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Lewis Summer Challenge 2014, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 14:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2153517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four seasons, four gardens, two men, and how much life can change in the course of one single year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Autumn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Willowbrooke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowbrooke/gifts).



> Written for the prompt 'I'd like a fic set in a garden'.
> 
> Huge thanks to my wonderful beta readers witch9spring and chiralove - any remaining mistakes are mine alone.

James knows he should hate this time of year. It’s the tail-end of autumn, and everything is just starting to die away, the first hint of a chill hovering in the air. But it’s hard to hate it, especially on a clear day like this one, and standing in a garden such as this. It’s a nice garden – his critical eye can tell that much, even if he can’t name most of the plants in it. Contrary to what Lewis thinks, James doesn’t actually know something about everything, though he can easily quote long and free about nature and botany if the need ever arises.

“Take a look at this, Sergeant.” Ah, think of the man himself… James shakes himself out of his reverie and obediently steps closer, his crime scene suit rustling slightly as he moves. “He’s clutching something in his hand.”

He kneels beside his Inspector, instinctively being very careful of the placement of his feet, and taking care to stay out of the dying rose bushes in which the body lies. “I see it, Sir. Looks like – is that a necklace? A locket, maybe?”

“Laura!” Lewis is up and off immediately, heading for Doctor Hobson and the rest of the SOCO team, but James stays kneeling by the roses for a moment longer. The body lies right in the middle of one of the largest bushes, fallen petals lying all around, clothes caught and torn on a thousand thorns.

It really is a nice garden, he can’t help thinking, with a carefully manicured lawn and beautifully tended flower beds. Those flowers have started to fade now, of course, as autumn takes a firmer grip, though there are still splashes of colour visible even now. It’s a nice house too, big but not too formal, and thankfully it’s also a nice day to be outside, in spite of that threatening chill.

James fights the urge to light up a cigarette, knowing this is neither the time nor the place, and instead he simply does the most important and basic part of his job. He observes his surroundings, and he thinks. He watches the SOCO team moving about in their white scene suits, performing routines he’s seen more than a hundred times now. He sees Laura Hobson on her way towards where he kneels, not looking thrilled to be headed back into battle with the thorny roses after only recently escaping. And he spies his governor following her closely, a familiar frown of deep thought on that expressive face of his.

He sees the grand house behind them both, and the open window upstairs they assume the victim jumped from.

But kneeling down here, in the cool grass of what is clearly a well-loved garden, the angle suddenly seems wrong, and he wonders why none of them saw it before.

“Sir?” He beckons his boss back over and waits until the older man kneels close by his side, their bodies pressed up tight against each other, the way they always do. The heat of Lewis’s body chases the chill away as James gestures upwards. “He couldn’t have jumped. It’s too far.”

Lewis’s frown deepens, and he looks up to the window then back at the dying rose bushes with their grim burden. “A running jump?” he speculates, but James shakes his head instantly.

“He’d be the other way round, surely. Head first, not feet first.” And sure enough, the feet are pointing away from the house, clad in a pair of tartan slippers which somehow stayed on despite the fall. James feels guilty for thinking they are really cheap and downright nasty.

“Hmm. You know, you might be on to something,” Lewis mutters, and James can practically see the cogs turning in his DI’s brain. “Looks almost like he was just dropped straight down into the bushes from above, but that can’t be right…”

And they’re off, ideas starting to come thick and fast as they bounce theories back and forth. The fading beauty of the autumn garden is lost as yet more SOCO swarm carefully over it, Hobson and her team starting to think about how best to extract the body from the thorny rose bushes. After a short wait, Lewis finally gets his hands on what does in fact turn out to be a locket, clutched tight in the dead man’s hand.

James hates the fact that yet another person has lost their life, just as he hates the misery and pain he knows they’ll see as they investigate this death, but at the same time there is much he loves about his job. He loves the teamwork and the mystery of it all at the start of a new case, but mostly he just loves that he gets to be right by Lewis’s side, the pair of them working together effortlessly after so many years. Not for the first time, he realises that he really wouldn’t want to do this job with anyone else, not now. It’s comforting beyond words to think Lewis might feel the same way. 

Even as they split up to get started on the most immediate and pressing tasks – Lewis to talk to the wife again, James to start the search of the rooms upstairs – he can still feel the warmth of the older man’s presence right against his side. He carries that with him as he goes about his job, a guard against all sorts of chills.


	2. Winter

James tugs the collar of his winter coat a little higher still, lifting his cigarette to his lips and taking a long drag. The expensive wool blend hugs his long body and traps the warmth inside, though raising the collar makes no noticeable difference to the temperature. It does, however, make him feel a little better.

A scarf might have been more use, but in truth there isn’t even a breath of wind to fend off. The bitter cold he feels is in the very air itself, the kind of sub-zero temperatures that keep everyone but the hard-core smokers tucked up safely indoors on an evening like this. It’s perhaps not that cold in the grand scheme of things, though it’s certainly as freezing as this part of the world ever gets, and most people want to be tucked up with their central heating or, even better, huddled around a roaring fire.

A shame, really, James muses as he looks out over Doctor Hobson’s garden. It’s been an absolutely beautiful winter’s day, with clear skies and weak sunshine all the way, and it looks like it’ll be a glorious sunset too. The pale sky is already starting to turn shades of pink and orange as the day draws to a close, though it’s barely four in the afternoon.

The freezing temperatures, though, are even starting to get to him now, and James starts walking slowly down Doctor Hobson’s lawn in an attempt to prevent himself shivering too badly. No, he corrects himself – not Doctor Hobson’s lawn, but Laura’s lawn. She keeps telling him to call her Laura outside of work, especially now she and Lewis are finally, officially, ‘together’.

He’s struggling, he can admit that much to himself at least. Not just struggling with remembering to use her first name, though it really is ridiculously hard to call her ‘Laura’ – just as it’s nearly impossible to call Lewis ‘Robbie’ rather than ‘Sir’, as he’s also being encouraged to do – but he would have to admit he’s struggling with the whole idea of the two of them dating. Officially. At long last.

As he stops in the middle of the garden, looking over at the wooden swing set where he and Lewis – Robbie, he reminds himself – where he and Robbie once sat side by side, a part of him can finally admit he’d never thought it would actually happen. He’s watched the two of them dancing around the subject of love and loneliness and dating for as long as he’s known them, and, if pressed, James would have to say he’d been comfortable and absolutely certain that it would never happen for them. 

It wasn’t that he’d wished either of them ill. On the contrary, he wants nothing more than for them both to be happy. Loneliness can be terrible, he knows that first hand. But he’d always been so sure they wouldn’t make each other happy, so certain that their friendship would never blossom into love. If it was meant to happen, if the two of them were destined to be together, it would have happened sooner, surely.

That had always left him room to dream, guilt-free, of a life he might have with Robbie, one impossible day in the unforeseeable future. Perhaps after they’d both left the force, after they were no longer supervisor and subordinate. When they could be equals, and he could finally ask if the other man might be interested. In him.

He thought, sometimes, that perhaps Robbie actually was interested. There was the occasional glance, or a knowing look. There were fingers brushing against his and lingering, far longer than necessary. There was the press of the other man’s body close against his, when they sat side by side. Easily enough to keep James’s hope alive all these years, though he would never dare presume to make the first move. How stupid he’s been.

Taking a fierce drag on his dying cigarette, James looks round the little garden, shivering harder now in spite of his warm wool coat and his raised collar. Everything around him is bare. Every plant and tree that can has died back for the winter, leaving only the thinned lawn and a few hardy evergreens to still give some hint of colour. There are bare twigs and brown soil everywhere he looks, though it’s all very neat and tidy, with no piles of rotting leaves or stray branches to be seen.

He wonders bitterly if Lewis – Robbie – has been helping Doctor Hobson – Laura – to keep it up.

Too much of an obvious metaphor, he thinks, this dying garden in comparison with the final death of his own hopes for the future. Far too obvious, and nothing but self-pitying. James doesn’t go in for that sort of thinking, as a rule. He can’t afford to let himself think that way, for fear of being swallowed by depression. The job gives him enough cause for that – there’s no reason to add to it.

He’d come so close to walking away from it all. He’d had his resignation letter typed, printed and signed, and his meeting with Innocent all set up. But then he’d hesitated, reconsidered for the hundredth time, as he remembered ‘if you go, I go’. He’d decided to stay just a little longer, until Robbie finally retired. To make the most of every last minute they had working together. 

He takes a final drag on his cigarette and breathes out the last of the smoke slowly, standing now at the far end of the garden and turning to look back up towards the house. He can see Robbie and Laura silhouetted in the light from the kitchen window – to James’s eyes, they look very happy together. 

He stubs the cigarette out harshly, pausing only a moment before flicking it over the fence into a neighbouring garden. Immediately he feels guilty about the action, but it’s done now.

Squaring his shoulders against the cold, James drags his feet as he walks back towards the house, away from the bare trees and exposed soil. He’ll do his very best to be happy for his two friends; they both deserve nothing but happiness, surely, after so long spent apart and alone. It really shouldn’t be difficult for him to adjust to seeing them together as more than just friends. 

He can be happy for them. He will be happy for them. No, he is happy for them, James tells himself firmly. He really is.


	3. Spring

“Anyone’d think this was the start of the apocalypse, or at least the end of the world, or something.” James resists the urge to point out that they are one and the same, though he does fail to stifle a snort of laughter as Lewis arrives at his side, ducking beneath his large black umbrella and huddling close. “Anyone got Noah on standby?”

“One Ark ready and waiting, Sir, as ordered,” he replies instead, trying to blow the last of his cigarette smoke away from his boss’s face. The wind, of course, just whips it straight back at them, along with another blast of rain. “But the weather forecast is only for six days and nights of rain, not forty.”

“Clever clogs,” Lewis grumbles, but James can hear the smile beneath the other man’s words, even without looking at him.

For a long minute they just stand in a comfortable and familiar silence in yet another garden-turned-crime-scene, watching through the gusting sheets of rain as a drowned-looking SOCO team abandon their attempts to keep the tent up and just try to dig a straightforward trench at the end of this long, narrow garden.

It’s a trench which increasingly looks like nothing more than a mud bath. James suddenly feels bad for Lewis – there’s no real reason for both of them to be getting drenched, after all, and the older man had been tucked up safe and dry indoors, while James is long since soaked to the skin and shivering. He’s keeping the umbrella up more out of sheer stubbornness at this point, rather than out of any practical use, though he tries his hardest to shield his governor from the worst of the weather.

It might be a pointless effort, though. “Why don’t you wait inside, Sir?” he suggests, having to raise his voice and grab at the umbrella with both hands as the wind howls around them. “It could be a long while yet.”

“Nah, you’re alright.” Lewis grabs at the umbrella too in an attempt to stabilise it, his hand closing partly on top of James’s own. “Want to see this through now. See it done.”

There’s no answer to that. None that needs saying out loud, at least. James knows exactly what Lewis means, and he feels the exact same way – they’ve been searching for this missing young woman for more than a fortnight, chasing round in circles and getting absolutely nowhere. They had hit a brick wall at every turn, and every possible lead had turned to dust in front of their eyes. Finally, out of the blue, they’d received a solid tip-off that suggests her body lies buried here. The whole team desperately want to see her found, though of course alive would have been vastly preferable to dead.

At least this way, her family might be able to have some kind of closure. To know, rather than to always wonder. To bury a body, rather than just an empty coffin. 

Side by side they keep watch, James crouching down ever so slightly to keep the umbrella low, in an increasingly futile attempt to protect the shorter man from the elements as much as he can. As the rain continues to batter them, Lewis doesn’t shift his hand away from James’s. The point of contact is almost like electricity between them, at least to James. Bare skin on bare skin in a windswept garden.

“Me’n’Laura called it off,” Lewis suddenly announces, just as a gust of wind slams into them from the side, knocking James into the other man in spite of his attempt at bracing his feet. Lewis steadies him and keeps him close, before adding, “Figured we were better as friends. Waited too long, perhaps. No spark. No fire.”

“I’m sorry.” The words are automatic, instinctive, escaping from James’s lips before he’s even realised it. They are true, though. The wind seems to carry Lewis’s words back around to him, and this time when they hit they sink in fully, despite his shock. He finds he has to say it again – “I’m sorry, Sir. I know you both wanted… You both deserve happiness.”

Silence falls between them again, or as much silence as there can be given the SOCO team digging muddy holes in a stormy garden. This silence is tense, though, and James doesn’t look down at Lewis, just as Lewis doesn’t look up at him. And their hands are still touching on the handle of the umbrella. And they are pressed tightly together, from shoulder to hip. And James wonders, fleetingly, feeling a spark of hope ignite somewhere deep inside…

“You deserve to be happy too, James.” Again, Lewis’s voice is nearly lost to the wind and the rain, though the words warm James’s heart regardless. “We both deserve that much and more.”

Lewis shifts his hand very deliberately on the handle until he closes his fingers entirely around James’s. Electricity, again, and James can’t be imagining that feeling. The other man’s palm is warm, in spite of the chill from the rain, and sparks seem to fly between their wet hands. As James stares, hardly daring to breathe, a single raindrop runs down from Lewis’s fingers onto his, and he shivers, feeling it burn his skin as it passes. 

His voice is shaky, but he has to say something. He can’t ask outright, not here, though he wants to. He can’t be imagining it, this feeling, this heat between the two of them. It can’t be just him feeling this way.

“Look, Sir.” He nods his head towards the far side of the garden, away from the muddy bog SOCO have unwittingly created. Gesturing away from what is very likely to be the last resting place of an innocent young woman. “Look, just there. Can you see?”

“Well, I never.” Lewis leans impossibly closer around James, his sharp eyes immediately spotting what James has already seen. “Bluebells. In this hellish weather.”

Only a tiny patch, the delicate bells shaking and shivering and drooping with the force of the rain. But there they are, regardless. A splash of colour as winter finally draws to a damp and miserable end.

“Spring is coming,” James says softly, lowering his head and daring to turn to look at the other man at last. To his surprise he finds blue eyes staring hopefully up at him. He draws strength from that, knowing he has to take the next step. He knows Lewis can’t, for so many different reasons. “It’s been a long time coming, Robbie.”

At the use of his given name Lewis smiles, and James can’t help but smile back as that spark of hope deep in his belly burns brighter still. But of course this is not the time for deep personal discussions, if either of them are even quite ready to have that conversation properly. And in the very next moment SOCO call out to them both, apparently finding what they all have been searching for. What they all hoped to find, and at the same time didn’t want to actually discover. Calling the DI and his DS over. 

All but giving up on the useless umbrella, they reluctantly separate to make their way across the boggy garden. There will be time later for conversations, if any are even needed. Time to see if they really are on the same page, and to see if they can turn this spark between them into a roaring flame.


	4. Summer

He shouldn’t be down here, not really. James knows he’ll be caught sooner rather than later, and he knows he’s promised to cut down, but the lure of this bright and peaceful garden away from the crowds of people, coupled with the promise of a quiet smoke by himself for a few blessed minutes, was simply too much to withstand for long. Now, with his cigarette finished, he should really be heading back to those crowds, but a few more minutes won’t hurt anyone.

Looking out at the manicured lawns and well-planned flower beds – truly beautiful, he thinks with a smile, a riot of colour and a feast for the eyes – James can’t help but be reminded of Crevecoeur. He used to watch the army of gardeners at work on the grounds, out and about in all weathers, but he suspects there are far fewer still employed there now. If any. 

As always, James feels guilty that he doesn’t know more of the true names of the plants putting on such a gorgeous display for him, though he does at least recognise most of them by sight. Lilies. Daisies. Roses, of course, in a myriad of shades of pink and red. There are always roses. 

He squints a little in the bright summer sunshine, though he’s already wearing his dark sunglasses. Should’ve worn sun cream too perhaps, he realises belatedly – he can feel the pale skin on his nose and cheeks turning pink and tender beneath the burning rays. Ah well, it’s a small price to pay to be out and around on such a glorious day. He’s fairly sure they’ve got after-sun at home, and if not then they’ll just have to stop off and pick some up.

There isn’t a cloud in the sky as he strolls slowly along the gently sloping pathway, reaching out occasionally to brush his free hand through the feathery grasses or to stir a sculptured hedge. The smell of freshly cut grass is strong in the air, and the sound of bees buzzing contentedly is all that can be heard in this part of the garden, far from the gathering he’s meant to be attending.

Not quite the only sound, as it turns out. Footsteps, soft but quick, coming up behind him.

He slows to a stop, though he doesn’t turn, listening as those familiar footfalls come closer and closer. He lifts his face to the sun, breathing deeply all the different scents of pollen from flowers in full bloom, and waits.

Soon enough, a strong pair of arms twine their determined and very welcome way around his waist, and he finds himself tugged gently back to rest against a warm and solid chest.

“Caught in the act,” Robbie whispers, pressing a lingering kiss to the nape of James’s neck, and he shivers involuntarily in spite of the heat from the sun.

“Indeed.” James lets himself lean back into Robbie’s strength, rocking them both gently where they stand together amid the flowers. “Sorry.”

“None of that now. Thought you’d lasted a fair while without one.” Trust Robbie to have noticed. One of the hazards of a garden party – it’s not civilized to smoke, of course, even though everyone is outside the entire time.

Speaking of being outside – James has to stifle a giggle as Robbie noses at his neck once again. “Won’t we be missed?” he asks, surprised to find his voice has grown husky. He knows Robbie will understand that he also means ‘won’t we be caught out’, both of them far too aware of Innocent’s presence at the party. In fact, it was only a forceful invitation from Herself which could have dragged either of them to a garden party to hobnob with the cream of Oxford society. Something about mending bridges and forging stronger relationships, though James would have to confess he’d stopped listening long before Innocent had stopped talking.

“Reckon we’ve got a few minutes.” Robbie sounds equally affected by their closeness, and his arms tighten just a fraction when James tries to turn around to face him, keeping him still. “Enjoy it while we can, eh, pet?”

James hums in agreement, closing his eyes briefly and lifting his face back towards the sun. A bee buzzes somewhere close by, and a songbird calls from the trees for its mate.

Ordinarily, he’d fill this silence with a quote, or at least a witty comment or two, but it’s too perfect a day for that. Behind him, Robbie’s chest presses further into his back with each deep breath the older man takes, and James soon finds himself unconsciously synching his own breathing to match.

They stand together for what could be minutes or could be hours, just breathing, in the middle of one of the most colourful displays of flowers and plants James has ever seen. Ahead of them, the immaculate lawns roll gently away, neat and nothing less than perfect.

Robbie is the one who breaks their moment of peace, burying a soft snort of laughter in James’s shoulder as he drops his head forwards. “I wouldn’t want to be the man who has to cut all that grass,” he mumbles, and James smiles fondly. “Or the one who did all the weeding.”

“Thought you wanted the allotment someday? Weeding is part of the job description, surely,” James teases gently, finally finding the strength to turn around and drape his arms over Robbie’s shoulders, looking the man he loves in the eye and holding him close. Robbie hasn’t got his sunglasses on for some reason, and the laughter lines around his shining blue eyes are pronounced as he squints up.

James drops a gentle kiss to each one of those lines, and Robbie laughs, shrugging against him as he says, “Ah, what’s a weed anyway? ‘A weed is no more than a flower in disguise’, right?”

It is James’s turn to laugh then, recognising the quote immediately. As always, he is delighted and surprised by Robbie’s random displays of literary knowledge – he’s always known the older man is far from the poorly-educated Geordie he plays at times. “’Which is seen through at once if love give a man eyes’,” he completes in a whisper, kissing Robbie’s forehead firmly. “James Russell Lowell.” 

With a fond smile, Robbie tilts his head and captures James’s roving lips in a heated kiss, before taking his hand. Reluctantly, they both start back towards the house and the garden party taking place on the far side. They are supposed to be making a good impression – there was something about funding, as well as smoothing over ‘ruffled feathers’, Innocent had told them – but neither of them really want to be there, not for a second.

“I was gonna grow carrots, me. Maybe peas. None of this fancy flowery stuff.” Robbie’s grumbles are only half-hearted, James can tell, and they fall easily into step together. After so many years, it’s only natural for him to shorten his long stride to match his partner’s, though now they walk hand in hand rather than simply shoulder to shoulder as they have always done.

“Someday…” James starts, then he stops, immediately feel Robbie’s curious and questioning gaze. He waves his free hand, gesturing out at the gardens around them. “Someday, you’ll have that allotment. Nothing this big, though. And I’ll always help you with the weeding, promise.”

A solid shoulder bumps his gently. “Aye, lad, you’d better. Though I’d settle for us finding somewhere with a bit of a garden, rather than both of us being stuck in flats. This is nice, if a bit grand for my simple tastes.”

“Us getting – ?” Was that an invitation? They haven’t talked about that, not about living together. Not yet. It’s still so new, this thing between them. This ‘next level’ stage of their relationship. Though so far, James feels, it’s working out just wonderfully. “Robbie, do you mean what I think you mean?”

“Aye, if you want to. Move in with me.” The silence falls again, though James can almost feel Robbie’s tension as they walk on, slower now, and the hand holding his tightens. “Not yet, perhaps. Not tomorrow, not next week. But if you want. When you want.”

“I want,” he manages to breathe, feeling the tension flood out of his partner and feeling a thousand times lighter himself. The future seems to spread in front of them, comfortable and yet passionate, filled with love and partnership and so much more that James never thought he would have. “Somewhere with a garden.”

And they walk on through the flowers, back towards the garden party. And finally towards their future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robbie and James quote from James Russell Lowell's poem 'The Growth Of A Legend'
> 
> The title is taken from Ecclesiastes 3


End file.
